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A Note on the History 
of the Jefferson Manuscript Draught of 
the Declaration of Independence 

IN THE LIBRARY OF 

The American Philosophical Society. 


/ 

BY 1. MINIS HAYS, M.D., 

One of the Secretaries of the Society. 




A 

I 


Reprinted July 21,1898, from Proceedings of the Amer. Philos. Society, Vol. xxxvii, 











a 



PROCEEDINGS AM. PHILOS. SOC. 


VOL. XXXVII, No. 157, PLATE VI. 


MmM ,f € u/nriv states or 

4 MEMCA 

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/ 


FAC-SIMILE OF THE JEFFERSON AUTOGRAPH DRAUGHT OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 
IN THE POSSESSION OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 

























PROCEEDINGS AM. PHILOS. SOC. 


VOL. XXXVII, No. 157, PLATE VII. 


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PROCEEDINGS AM. PHILOS. SOC. 


VOL. XXXVII, No. 157, PLATE VIII. 


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A NOTE ON THE HISTORY 

OF THE JEFFERSON MANUSCRIPT DRAUGHT OF 
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

IN THE LIBRARY OF 

THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 

BY I, MINIS HAYS, M.D. 

(Bead April 1, 1898.) 

As the precise historic relation of the Jefferson manuscript 
draught of the Declaration of Independence, possessed by this 
Society, to the document as adopted by the Congress, has been in¬ 
volved in some indefiniteness, it seemed desirable to collect and 
carefully examine all the information available on the subject. 

The draught was acquired by the American Philosophical Society 
seventy-three years ago and the following entry appears in its 
Donation Book: 

“ 1825, August 19. 

“The draught of the Declaration of Independence originally 
^’■esented to Congress. This venerable document was sent to R. 
H. Lee (the mover of the resolution of Independence) by Thos. 
Jefferson (in whose handwriting it appears to be, with the altera¬ 
tions made previous to the adoption by Congress) on the 8th [sic] 
July 1776 & has remained in Mr. Lee’s family until the present 
time when his Grandson, R. H. Lee, gave it to the A. P. Soc’y to 
be added to the Documents presented on 17 June. 1 It was accom¬ 
panied by a copy of Mr. Jefferson’s letter enclosing it. 

“ Donor. Richd. Henry Lee, grandson of R. H. Lee by hands of 
G. W. Smith.” 

On the margin of the page is written : 

“ Received from the hands of Richard Henry Lee, Esq., by me 
and in pursuance of his request presented to the American Philo¬ 
sophical Society. 

“George W. Smith.” 

1 The autograph correspondence of R. H. and A. Lee. 

RErRINTED FROM PROC. AMER. FHILOS. SOC., VOL. XXXVII, NO. 157. 


2 HAYS—DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. [Ap. 1, 


Below the entry of the donation and on the same page, the 
following certificate is written : 

“ Having examined the above Draught we certify it to be in the 
handwriting of Thos. Jefferson. 

“ Philad. 9 Sep. 1825. 

“W. Short, 
“Edward Coles, 

“Who has been for 40 yrs. “ Jn. Vaughan.” 

Correspt. of T. J. 

The document makes four, closely written pages on two sheets of 
white foolscap measuring 12$ X 7§ inches. 

It appears to be a fair copy, originally without interlineations 
or erasures, of the Declaration as adopted by the Committee. 
The omissions made by the Congress sitting in Committee of 
the Whole are indicated by underscoring the parts omitted and 
where insertions were made by the Congress they are, for the most 
part, written on the margin, in a different hand from the body 
of the text, and, as will be subsequently seen, after the copy had 
been received by Lee. 

The document was originally folded in four for convenience of 
transmittal and of filing, and at the top of the outside fold of the 
last sheet is written the following endorsement: 

“Declaration of Independence as reported to Congress, July 
1777” [sic ]. 

At the bottom of the fourth and last page is written: 

“The endorsement is in the handwriting of R. H. Lee, the 
alterations in that of Arthur Lee. ’ ’ 

Jefferson’s letter transmitting this manuscript copy of the Decla¬ 
ration to Richard Henry Lee, is as follows: 

“To Richard Henry Lee: 1 

“Philadelphia, July 8th, 1776. 

“Dear Sir: —For news, I refer you to your brother, 2 who writes 
on that head. I enclose a copy of the Declaration of Independ- 

1 From Lee’s Life of R. H. Lee , Vol. i, p. 275. 

2 Presumably Francis Lightfoot Lee, who was also a delegate from Virginia to 
the Congress and one of the Signers of the Declaration. 


1898.] HAYS—DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 3 


ence, as agreed to by the House, and also as originally framed. 
You will judge whether it is better or worse for the critics. I shall 
return to Virginia after the nth of August. I wish my successor 
may be certain to come before that time: in that case, I shall hope 
to see you, and not Wythe, in convention, that the business of 
government, which is of everlasting concern, may receive your aid. 
Adieu, and believe me to be your friend and servant.” 

Jefferson evidently thought that the critics had not improved the 
document and so Lee understood him; for in his reply, 1 he says: 

“ Chantilly, 21 July, 1776. 

“Dear Sir: 

“ I thank you much for your favor and its inclosures by this post, 
and I wish sincerely, as well for the honor of Congress, as for that 
of the States, that the manuscript had not been mangled as it is. 
It is wonderful, and passing pitiful, that the rage of change should 
be so unhappily applied. However, the Thing is in its nature so 
good that no Cookery can spoil the Dish for the palates of Freemen. 
********* 

“ It will always make me happy to hear from you because I am 
sincerely your affectionate friend, 

“Richard Henry Lee.” 

R. H. Lee, Jr., in his Life of his grandfather (p. 175) says of 
the copy thus enclosed, “The original was carefully preserved by 
Mr. Lee, not only for the interest he felt in its history, but for the 
great respect and warm friendship he felt for Mr. Jefferson. It has 
been as carefully preserved by his family, and finally committed to 
the author.” 

In this connection it should be recalled that the Virginia 
Convention, which convened at Williamsburg on the 6th of May, 
1776, unanimously adopted on the 15th of the same month a pream¬ 
ble and resolutions, which were prepared by Pendleton, offered by 
Thomas Nelson, Jr., and powerfully advocated by Patrick Henry, 
to whom R. H. Lee wrote from Philadelphia on April 20th, 
exhorting him to propose in the Convention a separation from 
the mother country: “ Ages yet unborn and millions existing at 
present,” Lee wrote, “may rue or bless that assembly on which 

1 Jefferson's MS. Papers, 2d series, Vol. 51, 12, Library of Department of 
State, Washington. 


4 HAYS—DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. [Ap. 1, 


their happiness or misery will so eminently depend.” 1 The 
preamble enumerated in strong terms the wrongs done to the United 
Colonies; the King’s proclamation declaring them to be out of the 
protection of the Crown; and that there was no alternative but 
abject submission or a total separation. The first resolution was as 
follows: 

“That the delegates appointed to represent this colony in 
the General Congress be instructed to propose to that respectable 
body to declare the United Colonies free and independent States, 
absolved from all allegiance to, or dependence upon, the crown or 
parliament of Great Britain, and that they give the assent of this 
colony to such declaration, and to whatever measures may be 
thought proper and necessary by the Congress for forming foreign 
alliances, and a confederation of the colonies, at such time and in 
the manner as to them shall seem best; Provided , the power of 
forming government for, and the regulations of the internal con 
cems of each colony, be left to the respective colonial legislatures.” 1 

Richard Henry Lee, by appointment of the delegates from 
Virginia and in accordance with the instructions conveyed in this 
resolution, moved in the Congress on June 7, 1776: 

“ That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free 
and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance 
to the British crown, and that all political connection between 
them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be totally 
dissolved.” 

The resolution was seconded by John Adams, and was debated 
from the 7th to the 10th of June, Lee strenuously urging every 
argument in support of his motion. The Congress finally on the 
10th of June ordered the further consideration of the resolution 
of independence to be postponed to the first day of July and “ in 
the meanwhile, that no time be lost, in case the Congress agree 
thereto, that a committee be appointed to prepare a declaration to 
the effect of the said first resolution.” 

On the evening of that day, the 10th, Lee received by express 
intelligence of the dangerous illness of his wife at her home in 
Virginia. He immediately asked for leave of absence and left Phila¬ 
delphia on the nth, before the Committee was elected to draught 

1 The Virginia Convention 0/1776, by Hugh Blair Grigsby, Richmond, 1855, 

p.8. 

*Ibid., p. 17. 


1898.] HAYS—DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 5 


a declaration of independence. Lee’s absence, which was of 
necessity to be of uncertain duration, precluded his being selected 
to serve on this Committee, in accordance with parliamentary prac¬ 
tice, and as the resolution was offered under instructions from the 
Virginia colony, another of its representatives, Thomas Jefferson, 
was selected to head the Committee, with, as the other members, 
John Adams, the seconder of the resolution in the Congress, Frank¬ 
lin, Sherman and R. R. Livingston, the last representing those 
who thought that the time had not yet arrived for such an extreme 
measure. 1 

The Committee unanimously requested Jefferson to prepare the 
draught, but before reporting it to the Committee he communicated 
it separately to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, because he says 2 “ they 
were the two members whose judgments and amendments I wished 
most to have the benefit before presenting it to the Committee. 
.... Their alterations were two or three only, and mostly verbal. 
I then wrote a fair copy, reported it to the Committee, and from 
them unaltered, to Congress.” 

Jefferson reported the draught to the Congress on Friday, June 
28, when it was read and ordered to lie on the table. On July 1, 
the Congress resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole and 
resumed the consideration of the original motion of Lee “ respect¬ 
ing independency,” which, after being debated through the day, 
was carried and was reported to the House and further considera¬ 
tion postponed to July 2, when it was adopted. The Congress, 
sitting in Committee of the Whole, then proceeded to the con¬ 
sideration of the Declaration reported by Jefferson, which had 
been referred to it on July 1, and examined, debated and amended 
it during the 2d, 3d and 4th of July. 

Jefferson, in his Autobiography , says : s “ The pusillanimous idea 
that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with still 
haunted the minds of many. For this reason, those passages which 
conveyed censures on the people of England were struck out, lest 
they should give them offense. The clause, too, reprobating the 
enslaving the inhabitants of Africa was struck out in complaisance 

> See E. Rutledge to John Jay, June 8, 1776, Jefferson's Autobiography, 
Ford’s Jefferson, Vol. i, p. 19. 

2 Jefferson to J. Madison, August 30, 1823, Ford’s Jefferson, i, p. 26. On this 
point see also Autobiography of John Adams, quoted by Ford, ibid, i, 24. 

3 Randolph’s Jefferson, Vol. i, p. 15. 


6 HAYS—DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. [Ap.l, 

to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to re¬ 
strain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still 
wished to continue it. Our Northern brethren also, 1 believe, felt 
a little tender under these censures, for though their people had 
very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable 
carriers of them to others. ’ ’ 

In the afternoon of the fourth the debate was closed and the 
Declaration as agreed to in the Committee of the Whole was re¬ 
ported by Mr. Harrison as Chairman of the Committee of the Whole 
and was adopted by the House. 1 

With the view of ascertaining more definitely the historic rela¬ 
tion of the copy in the possession of this Society to the original 
draught, Mr. John Vaughan, the Librarian of the Society, upon the 
receipt of the document from Mr. Lee, wrote to Mr. Jefferson, ask¬ 
ing him concerning this point, and received the following reply: 2 

“ To John Vaughan, Esq. 

“Monticello, September 16, 1825. 

“Dear Sir :—I am not able to give you any particular account of 
the paper handed you by Mr. Lee, as being either the original or a 
copy of the Declaration of Independence, sent by myself to his 
grandfather. The draught, when completed by myself, with a few 
verbal amendments by Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, two members 
of the Committee, in their own handwriting, is now in my own 
possession, and a fair copy of this was reported to the Committee, 
passed by them without amendment, and then reported to Congress. 
This latter should be among the records of the old Congress; and 
whether this or the one from which it was copied and now in my 
hands, is to be called the original is a question of definition. To 
that in my hands, if worth preserving, my relations with our Uni¬ 
versity gives irresistible claims. 

“Whenever in the course of the composition, a copy became 
overcharged, and difficult to be read with amendments, I copied it 
fair, and when that also was crowded with other amendments, 
another fair copy was made, etc. These rough draughts I sent to 

1 For a full review of the circumstances leading up to the Declaration and its 
adoption and signing, see Frothingham’s Rise of the Republic of the United 
States, Boston, 1872. 

2 The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, edited by H. A. Washington, Vol. vii, 
New York, 1854, pp. 409, 410. 


1898 .] HAYS—DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 


4 


distant friends who were anxious to know what was passing. But 
how many, and to whom, I do not recollect. One sent to Mazzei 
was given by him to the Countess De Tessie (aunt of Madame de 
Lafayette) as the original , and is probably now in the hands of her 
family. Whether the paper sent to R. H. Lee was one of these, or 
whether, after the passage of the instrument, I made a copy for him, 
with the amendments of Congress, may, I think, be known from 
the face of the paper. The documents Mr. Lee has given you must 
be of great value and until all these private hoards are made public, 
the real history of the revolution will not be known.” 

On April 24, 1840, in response to Mr. Vaughan’s request Richard 
Henry Lee sent him the following statement: 

“ The Draught of the Declaration of Independence in the Athe¬ 
naeum [American Philosophical Society] 1 in Philadelphia, in the 
handwriting of Mr. Jefferson, came into my possession, together 
with the MSS. of Richard Henry Lee from Francis L. Lee, one of 
the sons of R. H. Lee; and was presented by me to the Athenaeum 
[American Philosophical Society] in Pha. 

“The history of this Document, given to me by my father and 
his brother, as given them by their Father, R. H. Lee derived from 
Mr. Jefferson, is this, that after alterations had been made in the 
Committee of the first draught drawn by Mr. Jefferson, he drew two 
Draughts , one to be reported to Congress; and the other for Richard 
H. Lee , which he sent to him enclosed in a letter dated (I think) 
on the 8th July 1774 [j/V], This letter and the draught were care¬ 
fully kept by R. H. Lee and after his death were as carefully pre¬ 
served by his sons. Copies of the letter were taken; but the orig¬ 
inal had been lost, before the MSS. of R. H. Lee came into my 
hands. The copy which I presented to the Athenaeum [American 
Philosophical Society] with the Draught, was declared to me by the 
sons of R. H. Lee, to be an exact copy. The Draught being 
drawn by Mr. Jefferson himself, before the report had been made 
to Congress, is as much an Original , as any other in existence. 
The interlineations on the Draught were written by Arthur Lee. 

“Richard Henry Lee, 

“A.D. 1840. Grandson and Biographer of R. H. Lee.” 

1 Mr. Lee seems to have confused the American Philosophical Society with the 
Athenaeum, which was a tenant in the building of the former at the time of Mr. 
Lee’s visit to Philadelphia. 


8 HAYS—DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. [Ap. 1, 


A careful study of the Lee manuscript copy in the possession of 
this Society clearly shows it to be the wording of the draught as 
reported by the Committee of five to the Congress. There is 
nothing to indicate whether it was a copy made by Jefferson 
at the same time that he made the fair copy to be reported to the 
Congress or later but prior to the writing of his letter of trans¬ 
mittal to Lee on July 8. Nor is there anything to prove whether 
the underscoring of the parts stricken out by the Congress was 
done by Jefferson or by some other hand at a later date, although 
Jefferson seems to have underscored these parts in all the fair copies 
he subsequently made of which we have knowledge. 

Under the circumstances it was natural that Jefferson should 
send to Lee a copy of the Declaration so soon as it was agreed 
upon, and it seems therefore probable that when writing a fair copy 
to report to the Congress, and not anticipating any material altera¬ 
tion of it, he should, also, so as to lose no time, make another copy 
to send to Lee. As the Congress was sitting in secret session the 
necessity of maintaining all the safeguards of secrecy as to its pend¬ 
ing deliberations prevented his forwarding this copy until after the 
adoption and promulgation of the Declaration. Then on the 8th 
of July, when he could, with propriety, send it, he found it neces¬ 
sary, because of the unexpected changes made by the Congress, to 
enclose also a copy of the text as finally adopted. 1 

Richard Henry Lee, Jr., in The Life and Correspondence of his 
grandfather, says (p. 175), that Jefferson in his letter of July 8, 1776, 
enclosed a copy of the Declaration as “drawn in the Committee 
and also a copy of the Declaration as adopted by Congress. ’’ This 
statement, taken in connection with the fact that the marginal 
notes of the changes by the Congress in this Society’s copy were 
not made by Jefferson, but are in the handwriting of Arthur Lee, 
who was not in this country at any time during the year 1776, is in 
entire accord with that made by Jefferson in his letter of transmit¬ 
tal, in which he says, “ I enclose a copy of the Declaration of Inde- 

1 1 have been unable to ascertain whether the copy of the text as adopted by 
the Congress was among the Lee papers presented to the University of Virginia, 
and if so, whether it was saved from the fire which destroyed its Library build¬ 
ing in October, 1895. The Lee papers were contained in a trunk which, at the 
time of the fire, was thrown out of an upper window and broken by the fall. 
The papers were gathered up into a bundle and it is hoped none were lost, but 
until the new Library building is completed they cannot be examined. 


1898 .] HAYS—DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 9 


pendence as agreed to by the House, and also as originally framed ’ ’ 
and with Lee’s reply thanking him for the “ inclosurer. ” 

If this manuscript copy had been made after the 4th of July it 
seems most likely that Jefferson would have copied the document as 
finally adopted by the Congress on that date, or at least would have 
indicated on the margin all the changes that had been made by the 
Congress. It also seems probable that the copy of the text as 
adopted by the Congress, enclosed by Jefferson for purpose of com¬ 
parison, was a printed copy, as the document was by order of Con¬ 
gress 1 immediately put in print, and on the 5th the President trans¬ 
mitted copies, probably in the form of a broadside, to several 
assemblies, 2 and it appeared in The Pennsylvania Evening Post, for 
Saturday, July 6, 1776 (Vol. ii, No. 228); had it been another 
manuscript copy it would have been preserved by Lee with the same 
care as he gave to the one now in the possession of this Society. 
The accompanying copy could not have been the copy in the Em¬ 
met Collection now in the Lenox Library, hereafter to be referred 
to, which is said, also, to have belonged to “the Lee family,” 
since that, too, is a copy of the draught as presented by the Com¬ 
mittee and not as adopted by the Congress. 

The marginal notes showing the additions to the text made by 
the Congress are evidently written by a different hand from the one 
that wrote the draught, and according to the endorsement, they 
were written by Arthur Lee. The handwriting appears to be his 
and I see no reason to doubt the correctness of the statement. 
Arthur Lee was in Europe, and had been there for some years, when 
the Declaration was adopted and did not return until September, 
1780. 3 From which it would seem certain that at a date subse¬ 
quent to this he and R. H. Lee compared the draught written by 
Jefferson with the document as passed by the Congress and marked 
the omissions and wrote on the margins the additions. 

It is probable that the endorsement on the document was 
made some years after it was received, which may account for the 
erroneous date on it of “1777,” which error would not be likely 
to have been made had it been written when received in 1776. 

1 “ Resolved That copies of the Declaration be sent to the several assemblies, 
conventions and committees or councils of safety, and to the several commanding 
officers of the continental troops; that it be proclaimed in each of the United 
States, and at the head of the army.” 

2 Frothingham, loc. cit., p. 544. 

3 See Life of Arthur Lee, by R. H. Lee, Vol. i, p. 164. 


10 HAYS—DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. [Ap. 1, 

The conclusions I had reached concerning the draught belonging 
to this Society were subsequently confirmed by the following letter, 
written in the autumn of 1841, from John Vaughan to the Prince 
de Joinville, a copy of which I have recently found among the 
Society’s unarranged manuscripts. 

NOTE RELATIVE TO THE ORIGINAL DRAUGHT OF THE DECLARATION OF 
INDEPENDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN THE 
HANDWRITING OF THOMAS JEFFERSON AND NOW IN POSSESSION 
OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY AT PHILADELPHIA. 

On the 7th day of June 1776 Richard Henry Lee moved in the 
American Congress “ That America should declare itself Inde¬ 
pendent of Great Britain this motion was seconded by John 
Adams. The consideration of this motion was referred to 10th 
June. On that day Rich. Henry Lee received an account that his 
Wife was dangerously ill, obtained leave of absence from Congress 
and went home. On the 10th June, Congress proceeded to the 
Order of the day, and after some debate, postponed the further 
consideration of the question to the 1st July ; but in order to save 
time, appointed a Committee to prepare a form of Declaration, to 
be ready for adoption, if then determined upon. The Committee 
named consisted of Mess. T. Jefferson, J. Adams, B. Franklin, 
Sherman & R. R. Livingston. Mr. Jefferson having been appointed 
Chairman of the above named Committee, it was assigned to him 
to prepare a Draught of the Declaration, {the three first named 
were the most active members. ) The Draught was submitted to the 
Committee who suggested alterations. Amongst Mr. Jefferson’s 
papers after his death there was found the Copy with the final cor¬ 
rections of his Associates from which a copy has been lithographed 
and appended to the Memoirs of Jefferson by his Grandson Thomas 
Randolph and a copy of this is preserved by the A. P. S. in a 
frame. From this rough corrected Draught Thomas Jefferson made 
Two fair Copies one to be submitted to Congress, as the report of 
the Committee, and one for Richard Henry Lee, the mover of 
Declaration, who did not return previous to the 1st July. The fair 
original Copy intended for Congress was reported to that body by 
Benjamin Harrison (father of the late President Harrison to whom 
it had been entrusted) on 1st July. Considerable alterations were 
made previous to its adoption which took place on 4th July. On 


1898 .] HAYS—DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 11 


the 8th July Mr. Jefferson wrote to Mr. Lee as follows. “ I enclose 
yon a copy of the Declaration of Independence as agreed to by the 
House and also as originallyframed. ’’This was the Second copy which 
he had made for Mr. Lee. Mr. Jefferson added “ You will judge 
whether it is better or worse for the Critics. ’ ’ On the suggestion 
of Mr. Jefferson the Comparison was made by Richard Henry Lee 
and his Brother Arthur Lee, who drew a black line upon the 
original draught proposed by the Committee under every part rejected 
by Congress; and in the margin opposite placed the word out. 
This document thus marked is the one possessed by the Am. Philo¬ 
sophical Society. 

Sometime after the death of Richard Henry Lee his Grandson, 
of the same name, wrote the memoirs of his Grandfather, having 
obtained from his Father and Uncle all the papers and corre¬ 
spondence of his Grandfather with the Eminent Patriots 
of that day. These memoirs were published in Philadelphia by the 
Grandson in 1825 with whom I was on terms of intimacy. Whilst 
publishing he was requested to favour the Am. Philos. Society with 
the original papers and Documents as soon as he had made use of 
them. The request was granted and on the 17th June 1825 they 
were put in possession of the correspondence which is bound up in 
two Volumes, and on the 19th of August 1825 R. H. L. sent them the 
original form proposed by the Committee, in the handwriting of 
Mr. Jefferson, and with the marks thereon made by the two Lees 
above alluded to. When received it was duly recorded by the 
Society and Mr. Wm. Short & Mr. Edward Coles who were intimate 
Friends of Mr. Jefferson and the undersigned (who had been his 
Correspondent for more than 40 years) Certified on the book of 
records, that this Document was of the handwriting of Mr. Jeffer¬ 
son ; and Mr. George Washington Smith, to whom the delivery 
was entrusted, certified that he received the whole from Richard 
Henry Lee the Grandson, with directions to deliver them to the 
A. P. Society and that he delivered them to the undersigned for the 
Society. 

A copy of this proposed Declaration was published by the Grand¬ 
son in the memoirs of his Grandfather the parts left out by Congress 
being printed in Italics ; several Editions of this Italicised Copy of 
1825 were published between that year and 1829, when it was 
republished and Lithographed in similar form in the memoirs of 
Thomas Jefferson which was first published in that year. 


12 HAYS—DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. [Ap. 1, 

This original draught of the declaration is framed between strong 
glass Plates so as to be perfectly viewed and examined by those 
who feel an interest in it. The other Original sent to Congress, 
cannot be found. The form of Declaration finally adopted, & 
signed by the Members of Congress exists at Washington in the 
Department of State, but the originally proposed form has not been 
found , from which circumstance the Document in possession of the 
Society has with propriety become the sole original Draught. 

France having largely contributed to the obtaining this Inde¬ 
pendence, the undersigned (in whose charge this document now is) 
has been led to think that a correct account of it, and the mode by 
which it was obtained, would be received with some interest by his 
Royal Highness the Prince de Joinville, who has now an oppor¬ 
tunity of examining it. Under this impression this account has been 
drawn up by 

Jn. Vaughan (aged 85) 
Librarian of the Am. Phil. Society. 

A letter identical with that to the Prince de Joinville, but with 
the last paragraph omitted, was also sent by Mr. Vaughan to Mr. J. 
K. Tefft, of Savannah, on October 5, 1841, and is now preserved in 
the Emmet collection in the Lenox Library in New York, 1 and 
previously, on March 27, 1841, he sent a letter of similar purport 
to Mr. George Combe, of Edinburgh, 2 in which he answers the 
charge of the Edinburgh Review (No. 141, p. 134, 1839) that he 
had hoaxed Captain Marryatt. 

Captain Marryatt, in his Diary in America, page 43, Vol. iii, 
says, “Mr. Vaughan stated to me that he had found the original 
draft of the Declaration of Independence in the handwriting of 
Mr. Jefferson,” and the Edinburgh Review, commenting thereon, 
states that if Captain Marryatt “had ever read that very interest¬ 
ing book (. Memoirs of Jefferson, Vol. i, p. 17) he would have been 
aware how grossly a Mr. Vaughan, of Philadelphia, was hoaxing 
him when he talked of having discovered the original draught of 
the Declaration of Independence. ’ ’ Mr. Combe in his Notes on the 
United States (p. 330) says that “on my second visit to Philadel¬ 
phia, in March, 1840, Mr. Vaughan enabled me to peruse original 

1 For a copy of this letter I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. Wilberforce 
Eames, Librarian of the Lenox Library. 

2 Copy in the Society’s collection of MSS. 


1898.] HAYS—DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 13 


letters, giving its history from the day it was composed to that on 
which it was presented to the American Philosophical Society. 

. . . . Mr. Vaughan exhibited also a letter dated a few weeks 
before my visit from the son of Richard Henry Lee to himself, 
expressing his astonishment at the reviewer’s remarks.” 

The letter of R. H. Lee, Jr., above referred to, is preserved in 
this Society’s Manuscript Collections. It is dated, Washington, 
February 25, 1840, and is in reply to a letter from Mr. Vaughan of 
January 31, a copy of which is in the Dreer Collection of Auto¬ 
graphs in the library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. In 
the course of the letter Mr. Lee says, “ The Edinburgh Reviewer 
was rather too learned in our Antiquities. There was no hoax by 
you, on Marryatt. The paper you shewed him may be called with 
strict truth an original Draught. It is more so than that at Wash¬ 
ington. It was written verbatim after the first rough Draft of the 
Author, by the Author himself. It is as much, therefore, an original 
Draught as it well can be, inasmuch as the priority in time as to the 
first composed paper is a matter of no account where the same author 
writes at the sa?ne time and occasion the two draughts. Neither 
are copies .” 

The following copies of the Declaration of Independence in 
Jefferson’s handwriting are known to exist: 

1. The original rough draught showing changes made in Com¬ 
mittee of five and also by parentheses and interlineations most of the 
changes made by the Congress in Committee of the Whole. This 
appears to have been the last draught made by Jefferson in its course 
through Committee, and from it he wrote the fair draught to present 
to the Congress as the report of the Committee and also the copy 
to send to Richard Henry Lee (2). He apparently used this same 
draught in Committee of the Whole and noted on it the changes 
as they were made by the Congress. This draught was first repro¬ 
duced in facsimile in Randolph’s Jefferson. It was acquired by the 
Government with the Jefferson papers and is now in the Library of 
the Department of State. 

2. A copy of the draught reported by the Committee of five to 
the Congress and agreeing closely with the text of the preceding 
draught. This is one of two copies presumably made on or about the 
27th of June, 1776; one was presented to the Congress as the report 
of the Committee of five and is believed not to have been preserved; 
the other is the copy in the possession of this Society, and was sent 


14 HAYS—DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. [Ap. 1, 


by Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee on July 8th following, and pre¬ 
sented in 1825, by his grandson, of the same name, to the American 
Philosophical Society, in whose library it is preserved. 

3. A copy from the rough draught of the Committee of five, made 
in 1783 for James Madison and reproduced in facsimile in The 
Madison Papers, Vol. iii., Washington, 1840. Also in the Library 
of the Department of State. 

4. Another copy from the rough draught of the Committee of five, 
slightly different in wording, inserted by Jefferson in the manu¬ 
script copy of his Autobiography. This is written on contempora¬ 
neous paper and was a copy probably made by Jefferson not long 
after the adoption of the Declaration. Also in the Library of the 
Department of State. 

5. A copy in the Emmet collection in the Lenox Library, New 
York. “ This is one Of several fair copies made by Jefferson from 
the original rough draught of the Declaration, after its adoption and 
publication, in which he gave the wording of the text as reported 
by the Committee, with the portions underlined that were changed 
or rejected by Congress. After remaining in the possession of the 
Lee family of Virginia for many years, with other papers of Jeffer¬ 
son, .... was sold by the late Mr. Cassius F. Lee, of Alexan¬ 
dria, to Mr. Elliot Danforth, of New York, from whom Dr. Emmet 
obtained it.” 1 

I have not been able to learn the circumstances under which this 
copy came into the possession of the Lee family. Dr. Emmet 
writes me that the only information he “ can give is that Mr. Lee 
stated to me that it was one of the copies Jefferson sent his grand¬ 
father, and that it had been sent to some one in lower Virginia by 
Richard Henry Lee shortly after, and that it was not recovered for 
many years after.” 2 

This copy is without interlineation and does not contain the 
additions made by the Congress. It is, with some slight excep¬ 
tions, the text of the document as reported to the Congress. 

1 Bulletin of the New York Public Library , 1897, P- 355 * 

2 Personal communication, April 16, 1898. It does not seem likely that Jeffer¬ 
son should have sent two similar autographic copies of the Declaration to Rich¬ 
ard Henry Lee, and as the history of the copy possessed by this Society is clear 
and indisputable, it is probable that the Emmet copy came from another source, 
and Mr. Paul L. Ford, the learned student of Jefferson’s works, informs me 
that he is inclined to believe that it is the copy sent to John Page. 


1898.1 HAYS—DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 15 


6. A fragment of a copy in the possession of Mrs. Washburn, of 
Boston. 

In addition to these five copies and a fragment of a sixth, Jeffer¬ 
son made, according to Ford, 1 between the 4th and 10th of July, 
other copies, which he sent to George Wythe, 2 John Page, Edmund 
Pendleton and Philip Mazzei, who gave his copy, so Jefferson states 
in his letter to Vaughan, to the Countess de Tesse, of France, but 
it is not known if these copies are still in existence. 

The copy of the draught of the Declaration presented, as its re¬ 
port, by the Committee of five of which Jefferson was Chairman, to 
the Congress cannot be found and is believed not to have been pre¬ 
served. 3 It was probably read in the Congress and passed into the 
hands of the Secretary, who used it in writing in the amendments 
as they were adopted during consideration of the document in the 
Committee of the Whole and, upon its adoption by the House, at 
once sent it to the printer as copy and it was subsequently de¬ 
stroyed. ^ 

If these conclusions and the statement previously referred to of 
R. H. Lee, the elder, to his son, be correct, the historic value 
of the draught possessed by this Society lies in the fact, apart from 
its being an autographic copy by Jefferson, that it is one of the two 
fair copies made at the same time by Jefferson, one to report to the 
Congress, the other to send to Lee. As the copy presented to the 
Congress has been lost, the copy sent to Lee, and now belonging to 
this Society, must be regarded as the authoritative text of the Dec¬ 
laration of Independence as drawn by the Committee of five and 
reported to the Congress. 

1 Writings of Jefferson , ii, p. 42, Note. 

J This copy was delivered to Mr. Thomas Ritchie, editor of the Richmond 
Enquirer , by Major Duval, the executor of Mr. Wythe’s estate, and its text was 
printed in Niles’s Weekly Register, July 3, 1813 (Vol. iv, No. 13). Notwith¬ 
standing inquiry among Mr. Ritchie’s descendants I have not been able to learn 
whether it is still in existence. 

3 In the “ Rough Journal ” of Congress kept by the Secretary, Charles Thom¬ 
son, appears the entry under July 4, “ The Declaration being again read was 
agreed to as follows.” Here the printed Declaration, a broadside with the im¬ 
print : “ Philadelphia : Printed by John Dunlap,” is attached by wafers. In the 
fair copy of the “ Rough Journal ” the Declaration is written out at length in 
the same handwriting as the rest of the Journal. See Chamberlain, « The Sign¬ 
ing of the Declaration,” Proceedings of Massachusetts Historical Society , 2d 
Series, Vol. 1 , p. 286. 


16 HAYS—DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. [Ap. 1, 


The text of the draught possessed by this Society and a facsimile 
of it are appended r 1 

[A Declaration by the Representatives of the UNITED STATES 
OF AMERICA in General Congress assembled.] In Congress , 
July 4 , 1776, The Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United 
States of America. 

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one 
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them 
with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the 
separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of 
nature’s god entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of man¬ 
kind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them 
to the separation. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created 
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with [inherent and 
inalienable] certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, 
governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers 
from the consent of the governed ; that whenever any form of gov¬ 
ernment becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the 
people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, 
laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers 
in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety 
and happiness. Prudence indeed will dictate that governments 
long established should not be changed for light & transient causes, 
and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more 
disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right them¬ 
selves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But 
when a long train of abuses and usurpations, [begun at a distin¬ 
guished period &] pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a 
design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, 
it is their duty, to throw off such government, & to provide new 
guards for their future security. Such has been the patient suffer¬ 
ance of these colonies, & such is now the necessity which constrains 
them to [expunge] alter their former systems of government. The 
history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of [unre¬ 
mitting] repeated injuries and usurpations, [among which appears 

1 The text is printed in Roman characters. In order to show the changes 
made by the Congress the parts stricken-out by the Congress are enclosed in 
[brackets], and the parts inserted by the Congress are printed in Italics. 


1898 .] HAYS—DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 17 

no solitary fact to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest; but] 
all [have] having in direct object the establishment of an absolute 
tyranny over these states. To prove this let facts be submitted to 
a candid world, [for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsul¬ 
lied by falsehood]. 

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and neces¬ 
sary for the public good. 

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate & 
pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his 
assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has [neglected 
utterly] utterly neglected to attend to them. 

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large 
districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of 
representation in the legislature; a right inestimable to them, & 
formidable to tyrants only. 

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncom¬ 
fortable, & distant from the depository of their public records, 
for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his 
measures. 

He has dissolved Representative houses repeatedly [& con¬ 
tinually], for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the 
rights of the people. 

He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions to cause 
others to be elected whereby the legislative powers, incapable of 
annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise, 
the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of 
invasion from without, & convulsions within. 

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for 
that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; 
refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither; & 
raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. 

He has [suffered the administration of justice totally to cease in 
some of these states] obstructed the administration of justice by 
refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. 

He has made [our] judges dependant on his will alone, for the 
tenure of their offices, and the amount & paiment of their salaries. 

He has erected a multitude of new offices [by a self-assumed 
power] & sent hither swarms of officers to harrass our people, and 
eat out their substance. 

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies [and 
ships of war,] without the consent of our legislatures. 


18 HAYS—DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. [Ap. 1, 


He has affected to render the military independant of, & superior 
to, the civil power. 

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction 
foreign to our constitution[s] and unacknowledged by our laws; 
giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation 
for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; 
for protecting them by a mock-trial from punishment for any 
murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these 
States; 

for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world; 
for imposing taxes on us without our consent; 
for depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury ; 
for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences; 
for abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring 
province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and 
enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example 
& fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into 
these [States] Colonies; 

for taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, 
and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments; 
for suspending our own legislatures, & declaring themselves in¬ 
vested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. 

He has abdicated government here, [withdrawing his governors, 
&] by declaring us out of his [allegiance and] protection, and wag¬ 
ing war against us. 

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, 
& destroyed the lives of our people. 

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercena¬ 
ries, to compleat the works of death, desolation & tyranny, already 
begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled 
in the most barbarous ages and totally unworthy the head of a civil¬ 
ized nation. 

He has excited domestic insurrections among us, and has endeav¬ 
ored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless In¬ 
dian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished 
destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions [of existence]. 

[He has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow citizens 
with the allurements of forfeiture & confiscation of our property.] 
He has constrained [others] our fellow citizens taken captive[s] 
on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the 




1898 .] HAYS—DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 19 

executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by 
their hands. 

[He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its 
most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant peo¬ 
ple, who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into 
slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their 
transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of 
infidel 1 powers, is the warfare of the Christian 1 king of Great Britain. 
Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought 
& sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legis¬ 
lative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: 
and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distin¬ 
guished die, he 1 is now exciting those very people to rise in arms 
among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he 1 has deprived 
them, by murdering the people upon whom he 1 also obtruded them: 
thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties 1 of one 
people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the 
lives 1 of another,] 

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress 
in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered 
only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked 
by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a 
free people [who mean to be free. Future ages will scarce believe 
that the hardiness of one man adventured within the short compass 
of twelve years only, to build a foundation, so broad and undis¬ 
guised, for tyranny over a people fostered and fixed in principles of 
freedom.] 

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. 
We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their leg¬ 
islature to extend [a] an unwarrantable jurisdiction over [these our 
states] us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our 
emigration and settlement here, [no one of which could warrant so 
strange a pretension: that these were effected at the expence of our 
own blood and treasure, unassisted by the wealth or the strength of 
Great Britain: that in constituting indeed our several forms of 
government, we had adopted one common king, thereby laying a 
foundation for perpetual league and amity with them : but that sub¬ 
mission to their parliament was no part of our constitution, nor ever 
in idea, if history may be credited : and] we have appealed to their 


1 Underscored in original. 


20 HAYS—DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. [Ap. 1, 


native justice & magnanimity, [as well as to] and we have conjured 
them by the tyes of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpa¬ 
tions, which [were likely to] would inevitably interrupt our connec¬ 
tion & correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of 
justice, and of consanguinity; [and when occasions have been given 
them, by the regular course of their laws, of removing from their 
councils the disturbers of our harmony, they have by their free elec¬ 
tion reestablished them in power. At this very time too, they are 
permitting their chief magistrate to send over not only soldiers of 
our common blood, but [Scotch and] foreign mercenaries to invade 
and destroy us. These facts have given the last stab to agoniz¬ 
ing affection; and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these 
unfeeling brethren. We must endeavor to forget our former love 
for them, and to hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, ene¬ 
mies in war, in peace friends. We might have been a free & a great 
people together; but a communication of grandeur and of free¬ 
dom, it seems, is below their dignity. Be it so, since they will 
have it. The road to happiness and to glory is open to us too; we 
will climb it apart from them and] we must therefore acquiesce in 
the necessity which denounces our [eternal] separation [!] and hold 


them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace 
Friends. 

We therefore the Representatives of the United States of America 
in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the 
world for the rectitude of our intentions do, in the name, & by 
authority of the good people of these [states, reject and renounce 


all allegiance and subjection to the kings of Great Britain, and all 
others who may hereafter claim by, through, or under them; we 
utterly dissolve all political connection which may heretofore have 
subsisted between us and the parliament or people of Great Britain, 
and finally we do assert these] Colonies, solemnly publish and declare 
that these United Colonies are and of Right ought to be free and 
independant states; that they are Absolvedfrom all allegiance to the 
British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the 
State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; & that as 
free & independant states, they have full power to levy war, conclude 
peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, & to do all other acts 
and things which independant states may of right do. And for 
the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection 
of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, 
our fortunes, and our sacred honor. 



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N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 
















